The House We Want

Carrie and I already have a contract on a house we want. We had the home inspection over Spring Break. It managed to be what we wanted, in a place we wanted, and at a price we wanted all at the same time.

So, what's the catch?

The house has tenants. There is a family upstairs and a tenant downstairs in the basement who both have leases until the end of June. The web add did not say this. I can only imagine that anyone who showed up to view the house and found a pair of locked in renters immediately crossed the house off their to-do list.

However, we came 200 days on market later and with a town-house in the area until July 31st. The seller lived in California and wanted the property gone, but had a bottom line. What we didn't know was that the property was in danger of going to short-sale if it wasn't sold soon. It gave us a lot of bargaining power, but the seller's bank also refused to go below a certain price. From what I know, the seller's agent offered to cut part of his commission to put the house in our price range.

My first concern was, "What if the people upstairs don't want to move out?"

They did. They are. They will be gone by the time we close. I would not have minded collecting the $1350/month rent for a month or two, but I am happier that they have found a place to move on to.

The downstairs renter wants to stay on. Currently, she pays $750/month. The downstairs has it's own entrance, washer, dryer, kitchenette, and bathroom. She seems the quiet sort and we enjoyed Dan's basement trolldom. I am willing to give it a try. Carrie talked to her during the inspection and we will see how it works out. It would be great to have the extra income.

USAA threw us a curveball yesterday, though. They did not realize there were renters and once they found out there were they said we could not buy the house with them. USAA does not touch income-generating properties. It was a shock. We're already well into the progress. We just agreed to move up the closing date from the end of May when we heard the upstairs family would leave early.

Carrie worked furiously and we are in negotiations with a new lender. My wife filled out and sent in 28 different forms last night that were verified this morning. We probably won't get as nice of a rate as we did through USAA. Hopefully, the ping on our credits from USAA checking us out won't drop us out of the top credit tier.

And that's where we are currently. The sale of our previous house means we can put around 50% down and have a safety net left.

We're all in.

A job offer would be nice.